Copy and paste the files into a local directory (you are developing locally, right?)

Create a MySQL database.

Run the 5 minute WordPress install.

Download your starter theme.

Unzip it.

Copy and paste the theme file into WordPress’s theme directory.

Find your base plugins that you know you’ll need. Download each of them individually.

Copy and paste the plugin files into WordPress’s plugin directory.

Start your custom work.

That’s 11 steps, at least! I know, if you do it enough times you could probably get that down to a 15 minute setup, and that’s probably only if you have local versions of your boilerplate theme and plugins that you can quickly copy and paste into the respective directories.

But, why? Why would you even want to waste your time doing such mindless work every time you start a project when you could be spending that time designing and developing something beautiful and original?

What if I were to tell you that you could cut down that down to two minutes…on a bad day? Interested?

If you can hang with me for the length of this post, we can get you set up and you can start being more efficient.

Remember in English class, how they told us to (1) say what you’re going to say, (2) say it, and then (3) say what you said. I always remember thinking, “That sounds redundant.” Well, I’m going to take a lesson from Mrs. Nooks. I’ll tell you a little bit about the tools we’re going to put in our tool chest, then I’ll show you practically how to use them. It may get a little technical from time to time, but try to stick with it, it will be worth it.

Node.js

A lot of services are built on Node.js. If you visit the Node.js site it says it’s built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime. Just know, that means f-a-s-t.

If we’re going to use it, we have to install it. Fortunately for us, this is easy. There’s a big green “install” button their site. Click it.

Once the package is downloaded, unzip, and double click on the package to install it. Hooray!

NOTE

Grunt and Gulp also run on Node. (Blog post for the future.) Just know, for now, we’re set up for success!

Yeoman

Yeoman is a project generator. It can do quite a bit, setting up sites and scaffolding (and not just for WordPress). We’re going to take the easy way out and use a generator Wesley Todd has already created specifically for starting a WordPress project: YeoPress.

NOTE:

To run YeoPress, Node is the only thing that is required (which we just installed), however, Wesley encourages you to have git and SASS installed, too. If you don’t, no worries, it’s pretty straightforward too:

git

You can go to the git website, download the file, unzip, and double click on the package to install it. Done and done.

SASS

SASS is a Ruby gem. If you’re working on a Mac, it comes with Ruby already installed. All you have to do is open up your Terminal (GASP I know, it will be OK.) and run the command:

gem install sass

If you get an error, chances are you need to run the sudo command:

sudo gem install sass

Sudo forces your computer to run the command. It will ask you to enter your computer’s password.

If you want to check to make sure everything was installed correctly, you can run:

sass -v

You should see it return Sass 3.4.9 (Selective Steve).

Now, for installing Yeoman (yo) and YeoPress (at the same time). Within the Terminal run:

npm install -g yo generator-wordpress

npm just means that it’s a node command.

Easy.

Now, within the Terminal, we just have to navigate to the folder we want to install WordPress inside of.

If I lost you at, “within the Terminal,” it’s OK.

For the longest time, I was uncomfortable inside the Terminal, too. But, I promise, the more you use the more comfortable you’ll become. As soon as you see the benefits that the Terminal provides your workflow, it will eventually become something you can’t / won’t want to ignore.

Table Prefix
This is the table prefix for your WordPress database. By default it’s wp_. Stay with that. It makes it easy when you’re looking at your database to be able to tell which tables are related to your WordPress install.

Database Host, Name, User, Password

I use a free app on my Mac, called Sequel Pro to manage my databases. But, if you’re using MAMP, you can do everything through PHPMyAdmin.

MAMP will also list all the credentials you need (host, user, and password) on the WebStart page.

Use Git?
More on this later, too, but for now, take my word and just say “Yes”…err, rather “Y”.

Would you like to install WordPress as a submodule?

There are people that sit on both sides of the fence on this one, people for and against.

My personal take?

First, let me explain what a submodule is. Submodules are a “Git thing”. It’s essentially an external Git repo that your repo references. Think of it as a nested repo that you can update it independently.

When you think of it in those terms, it makes sense to implement WordPress as a submodule. I don’t manage the WordPress core, so why not make it seperate and reference the actual WordPress repo itself?

If you implement WordPress as a submodule, you’ll using the following commands to update WordPress later:

Posted 01.05.2015

Posted 01.05.2015

Getting Started

For years, I’ve been afraid of the Terminal. I was scared that I would erase my entire hard drive with a single typo.

But, then I started using grunt. I found it to be so much faster and allowed far more task automation than the tools I had been using previously. IMHO, anything that will speed up your workflow is worth investing in (whether that’s time or money ).

Once I started spending more time in the Terminal, I became more comfortable and confident. Trust me, I still prefer a GUI (graphical user interface), but I’m no longer afraid I’m going to delete my entire harddrive. — And let’s be honest, you could delete your entire hard drive with a GUI too. Drag your harddrive to the trash and click “Empty Trash.” But, nobody in the right their mind would do that. Similarly, you’d have to type a very specific command in the Terminal to delete your entire harddrive and nobody in their right mind would do that either. — Plus if you have a typo in the Terminal, it will tell you and the command won’t run.

So, here are the commands that I’ve found to be the most useful:

NOTE:

When you see examples of command lines in the Terminal and you see a $. Don’t copy the $, it just signifies that it’s the beginning of a Terminal line.

cd stands for change directory. Similar to the Finder where you click on the folder, in Terminal, you just type in the directory that you want:

$ cd Sites

You can type cd .. to go up a level or cd ../.. to go up 2 levels. cd / will take you to your home directory.

The Terminal also supports tab auto completion. So you could type cd De<TAB> and it will fill in cd Desktop for you. Handy!

ls will list all files and directories in your current location.

pwd will show you the current file path to your current location.

mkdir FOLDERNAME will create a folder named FOLDERNAME. mkdir stands for “Make Directory.”

Anytime, you hit the up arrow on your keyboard, it will fill in the last command you ran. Hit it again and it will cycle to the command before that. The down arrow cycles in the opposite direction.

Just to give you an idea of how these commands are used together: when I first open the Terminal, I might type ls to see what my file / folder options are. Then:

$ cd Code/GIT/
$ mkdir NEWPROJECT
$ cd NEWPROJECT

This navigates to the GIT folder and then creates a new directory for a project. Then, navigates inside the folder I just created.

If this is still making your head spin, here’s a WYSIWYG way that I saved until the end: Open up your Terminal type in cd . Then, open up Finder, navigate to the Folder you want to open in Terminal and drag that folder from the Finder onto your Terminal window. It should enter the location for that file path for you. Now, hit <RETURN>. — You’re welcome.

If you’re feeling ambitious, a few other tips and tricks:

I use iTerm2 instead of Mac’s default Terminal. It has a little bit more functionality. My favorite feature, I have a shortcut set up so that any time I hit ALT + Cmd + Space, the Terminal overlays my entire screen. Using the same command sequence will toggle it off. This is great for quickly checking on a grunt or gulp task.

If you want to set this up:

Download and install iTerm2.

Go to iTerm > Preferences. Click on the “Profiles” tab.

Click on the + button in the bottom left. I labeled my profile “Hotkey Window”

In the Window tab, I tweaked the transparency, checked Blur, changed the Style to “Fullscreen”, changed the Space to “All Spaces.”

Then, under the Keys tab, check “Show/hide iTerm2 with a system-wide hotkey. As I mentioned, I’m using ALT + Cmd + Space, but do whatever works best for you.

Also check “Hotkey toggles a dedicated window with profile:” and make sure “Hotkey Window” (or whatever you named your custom profile is selected from the dropdown.

Lightning Round.

I’ve always wondered how people were able to customize their Terminal to be all kinds of cool colors.

Even if you could care less about Terminal colors, there are other short cut codes packaged within Oh My Zsh that make Terminal life even better.

I took a leap of faith and trusted Robby Russell and simply ran his automatic installer via Curl. Just copy and paste the following line into your Terminal (remember you don’t need to copy the $ sign):

$ curl -L http://install.ohmyz.sh | sh

Then, you can start Zsh by simply restarting or opening a new command window.

Double click on the Solarized Dark.itermcolors file. It should launch iTerm2 with a pop-up message explaining that the color scheme has been loaded into the iTerm2 Preferences (Preferences > Profiles > Colors > Load Presets).

If you’re using a font manager like Suitcase, be sure to mark the font as permanent.

If you’re still having trouble, check the Text tab within iTerm2 and make sure the appropriate fonts are marked.

UPDATE JANUARY 25, 2015

Menlo for Powerline stopped working for me. So, I ended up downloading these Powerline fonts from GitHub and installing Meslo, using the same process as described above.

Tripe Bonus.

As I mentioned earlier, “Oh My Zsh” has several shortcuts included. For example, if you’re running Composer, instead of typing composer update, you can simply type cu. Instead of git status, gst. Still not convinced? Here’s one of my favorites: you can type stt and it will open the current directory within Sublime Text. These might not sound like much, but the more you live in the Terminal, the more time it will save you.

All of these shortcuts are considered plugins. You can check out all the ones that available on the Oh My Zsh’s wiki page.

Once you decide which plugins you want to use, you can activate them similar to setting the theme.

$ nano /.zshrc

Find the line that says plugins=()

Include the plugin name within the parenthesises.

Mine reads:

plugins=(git sublime sudo laravel4 Composer bower npm osx)

Last trick.

I have an alias set up so that anytime I type projects into iTerm, it will go directly to my projects folder, where I keep all my code. Essentially, it’s the same as typing cd ~/Code/GIT/ (just in case you were wondering the ~ references your home directory. If you’re not sure what I’m referring to, just type cd ~ and then pwd or ls in the Terminal. You’ll see.)

If you still have your preference file open (nano ~/.zshrc ), look at the bottom. There are a few examples already set up, but commented out (the # in front means the line is commented out). Add a line at the very bottom, below the examples, that reads alias projects="cd ~/Sites".

Then, write out the file (^O) and exit (^X). Restart iTerm2 (or open a new command window). Test it out. Nifty!

Posted 10.30.2012

I’m a PHP girl. I’ve been writing PHP for the past 7 years. I’ve heard so much about Ruby lately that it’s hard not to wonder, “Is it really all it’s hyped up to be?” I’ve been reading plenty of blog posts (here and here) trying to decide if it’s worth investing the time to learn (yet) another programming language. Part of me is eager is to learn something new and is up for a new challenge. I like to think, the more tools I have in my toolbox, the better suited I’ll be for various projects. … So, this is my journey to learning to looking at Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Join me, if you want, we can struggle together.

…yes, the two (Ruby and Ruby on Rails) are different. Ruby is the programming language. Ruby on Rails is the framework that sits on top of Ruby. If I can put it in PHP terms, PHP is the language, CodeIgniter is the framework. Great, so, what’s a framework?

Well, for almost every project, there certain things you always have to do. Websites, for example, I (almost) always have to connect to the database. I could write that code every time, or I could use a framework that has built in functions that do the work for me. A framework gives me structure and a starting place.

While I’m eager to get my hands dirty and jump in with Ruby on Rails, I know I first need to learn Ruby before jumping in the deep end. Rails will make a whole lot more sense and I’ll be able to go a whole lot further in the long run, if I have a foundation first.

I’ve seen The Well Grounded Rubyist mentioned several times on various sites, so I decided to buy the book and start reading. Call me old school, but I prefer books over videos. I like being able to set my own pace, actually see the words, highlight and take notes. I’ve also looked at Code School, but for where I’m at right now, I feel like it moves a little fast and I’m having trouble connecting all the pieces together. I might find it more helpful, though, after I have a few chapters with this book under my belt.

Installing Ruby

I work off a MacBook Pro, running Snow Leopard (I know). It came with Ruby already installed, but it wasn’t the latest version.

I had trouble finding the bin folder.

I finally found it. If you go to the root directory > usr directory, it’s there.

With those things out of the way, I was able to easily follow Dan’s instructions.

Understanding the difference between Ruby and ruby

(Apparently) the difference between Ruby and ruby is more than just an upper and lowercase letter. Ruby is the actual language, while ruby is the interpreter.

So, you’ll write Ruby files (with the extension .rb). Then, when you get ready to run the file, you’ll use ruby in the command line to interpret the file for you.

Your first Ruby Program

Create a folder called Ruby for all our code. Mine’s sitting in my Documents folder. Don’t worry, I didn’t do anything fancy like use the Terminal. I simply created it in finder. I’ll keep all my Ruby code there (crazy, I know).

In Sublime, I’ll create a new file and save it to that folder. I’ll call it “first_program.rb”

…BUT… if you did want to be fancy and feel really smart, you could do all this from the Terminal:

Inside the file, I’ll type:

puts "I'm writing Ruby"

Save!

Now, in the Terminal, I’ll navigate to that folder. I’ll run the interpreter:

Magic!

…If you don’t see this and got something like this, go back to your file in Sublime and make sure that you have code quotes " " and ' and not fancy ones.

OK, so what just happened in our code?! (It drives me crazy when authors say “Write this.” I write it and they say “Good job!” and I don’t even know what I wrote or what I did! For me, it’s just as much (if not more) about understanding the code, so I can use it in various circumstances in the future, as it is about completing the exercises.

In Ruby puts just means print. Send it to the screen. If you’re a PHP person (like I am), it’s just like echo. The only difference, is that puts adds a line break automatically to the end. So, none of this “\n” junk.

NOTE: Where did they get puts anyway? That doesn’t even sound like good English! Well, it’s an abbreviation for put string.

What if you want some of that “\n” that junk? Well, Ruby has another method you can use called print that doesn’t add “\n” to the end. I’ll show you what I mean. Open your first_program.rb back up. Update it to look like this:

puts "I’m writing Ruby"
print "This is my first program and "
print "it runs like a champ."

Save. Now, back in the Terminal, run your ruby first_program.rb command again.

NOTE: In the Terminal, you can hit the up arrow on your keyboard and it will automatically pull up the last command you entered. Keep hitting the up arrow and it will keep cycling back, showing the command before that. This makes it helpful, especially if you keep running the same commands over and over again.

See what I mean with the difference between puts and print?

OK, so, this might seem super simplistic, but the important part is we’ve started(!) and that’s something worth celebrating!

Below, I’ve listed a few tutorials that I’ve dabbled in, if you want to jump in a little deeper or move a little faster!